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41. FUCKING REACH, MAN! MAY 3RD!

Yeah, you could say I’m a little excited about last nights announcement. Now I have a date I can start my preparations for a month of fun. No visitors, no distractions, just solid Halo goodness. The one worry I have is my Xbox breaking. “What are the chances” you cry. But lets look back to the Halo 3 beta, and my hilarious experience with red rings.

My Xbox broke about two weeks before the beta was due, so I hammered it off to Microsoft hoping for a speedy return. To be fair to them, my replaced box did turn up two and a half weeks later. I stuck in Crackdown, spent four hours downloading the beta. Loaded it up, asked some friends to play, turned out they were in a game so I decided to have a shot on my own. First game was fun, got a couple of kills, excitement building. With this imbued confidence I decided to jump in with said friends, my experience lasted all of one minute, when my Xbox froze, forcing my to restart. Next game, the same.

I turned to Sarah, and said watch this, red ring. And lo and behold, three fucking red lights appeared on my Xbox, a whole four and half fucking hours since UPS dumped it on my doorstep. Thanks Microsoft, thanks a bunch.

So I grabbed the phone in anger, waited for about twenty minutes to speak to some one, to be told that the line closed at ten and I would have to phone back tomorrow. Now, saying I was angry would be an understatement. I wanted to rip someone’s face off with a blunt spoon, preferably one of those chunky plastic kids one.

Nest morning I was ready to explode down the phone line into some innocent call centre man’s face. But no, I got a lovely compassionate, friendly Dutch girl. She sounded fit. How could I shout at a fit Dutch girl? Especially one that said MS sucked. So I didn’t, she was sound, got me a free game (Kameo, if you’re interested), and I did get to play the beta. Just weeks late, when all my friends had got bored of the two maps on offer.

There, my rapidly explained history with Halo beta’s. If my Xbox does not break this time, then I will be one happy little ginger lad.